A newspaper article that featured a little girl in a sparkly dress clutching a shiny trophy had her pestering her parents for an introduction to the ice.

"They took me over to the ice rink and I started my first lessons. I just didn't stop from there," she explains.

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"I was a nightmare. I wanted to do every public session, every club hour, everything. I was addicted from the start."

Three years later, she became the youngest skater to ever make the Great Britain team, aged just 10.

Seventeen years after that, after 11 national championship titles, she is preparing to put the brakes on her skating career.

But not before she competes at next month's Winter Olympics in Sochi, aiming to banish the memories of her performance in Vancouver four years previously.

And yet, despite an ocean of time having passed since that first enchanting step onto the ice, there is still an element of that thrill present whenever she competes.

"The first time I ever performed, I remember being so excited. I remember I just couldn't wait to get my dress on," she recalls.

"It changes a lot as you get older but it's always fun to compete when you're at such a young age -- you've got no worries, no pressure and no stress. You're just so excited, bouncing to get on the ice.

"You go through a lot of different emotions and changes throughout the years -- some good, some bad."

All those early memories certainly filter into the former category.

Her prodigious rise after first picking up her skates culminated in that unprecedented inclusion in the Great Britain squad for someone so young.

McCorkell has enjoyed success on the international stage, winning gold medals at several prestigious events, and finishing in the top 10 at two European Championships.

But it is on her own territory that she is peerless -- last year's British title success was her eighth in a row.

You've got to take off, jump up, turnaround three times in the air in a split second. You've got to be perfectly straight to land on a tiny blade of a few millimeters
Jenna McCorkell

"Winning 11 titles is quite something," she said of her epic run.

"Somebody asked me how does it feel and I said, 'Old!' After 11 years of being British champion, it's quite an achievement and I'm really, really proud of it and proud of everyone that has supported me.

"You start to learn to cope with the fact that more and more is expected of you. I think the motivation to continue comes from wanting it more and more for myself."

There is an epic beauty about figure skating that resonates with the public.

The effortless grace of competitors performing to music has produced iconic moments in the sport, sparked by a flawless sequence at the 1984 Winter Olympics.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean's pairs routine in Sarajevo enchanted the public and judges alike, securing the British pair a perfect score from the judges -- a feat that had never been done before.

It won't happen in the future either, after a change in the judging system on the back of a controversial ruling at the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Russian pair Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze took gold in the mixed pairs despite many believing Canada's Jamie Salé and David Pelletier should have triumphed.

The new code means each skater gets a base value for every move they perform in a routine, based on its difficulty, even if they fall while doing it.

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That means a skater who has fallen can still score higher than a competitor who has skated cleanly.

Consequently, routines are become more audacious, and some skaters are now pushing the boundaries by attempting quadruple axels -- four aerial revolutions on a jump.

"I love skating because on the ice you just feel free," McCorkell says. "You're never at your limit.

"You can always try more -- there are so many goals, so much more you can do with the sport developing like it is, with the new judging system.

"It's more difficult for people like me who've been in the sport a long time to adapt to new things because our bodies are not like the fresh 15-year-olds who've been brought up in the new judging system.